Editorial: Power of voting evident in push to control rights

If you ever doubt how important your vote is, just take a look at the ways people will try to take it away.

It’s frustrating that so many of the common-sense changes that would strengthen the right of voters to decide their own future is under the control of powerful politicians who don’t want to shake loose their grip.

Two in Illinois in the past few weeks come to mind.

First, a clearly voter-supported measure to put an issue on the November ballot that could change the way political districts are mapped was foiled by a partisan state Supreme Court decision. Second was the veto of a bill that would have automatically registered people to vote when they received a new or renewed driver’s license.

There were talking points provided to justify the decisions, but the truth is pretty straight-forward. While both measures would have been beneficial to voters, each would have stripped some of the control from the hands of the political parties that most benefit from the status quo.

The measure to ask voters to change the way political districts are drawn every 10 years had the blessing of more than 500,000 Illinoisans who signed a petition to get it onto the ballot. It would have allowed a more sensible and less-partisan approach that the existing system in which the political party in power — lately, that’s been Democrats — draws squiggles and odd geometric patterns to maintain its voter dominance.

Attorney Michael Kasper, who has strong ties to House Speaker Michael Madigan, challenged the ballot initiative as being unconstitutional.

Although Madigan has maintained he is not involved in the squabble, his chief of staff, Tim Mapes, has been actively touting the party line, saying legislators like to be involved in “how they frame their districts.”

Republicans quickly saw through the excuse, not that it took much to do so.

But the GOP has protection issues of its own.

Gov. Bruce Rauner vetoed a measure that would have eliminated barriers in the process — as well as been less costly — by tying driver’s licenses with voter registration.

Although the proposal had remarkably strong bipartisan support in the state House and Senate, the Republican governor rejected the notion, saying it would open the door to voter fraud.

“The consequences could be injurious to our election system,” Rauner said. “We know that non-citizens have registered to vote in Illinois after obtaining a driver’s license and voted in recent elections.”

That’s the same tired reasoning conservative Republicans have given since 2010 in fighting similar proposals nationwide.

In Illinois between 2000 and 2012, there were 23 total election fraud cases. Just five of those involved actual voter fraud, according to data collected through a Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the subject.

Nationwide, the study found, “analysis of 2,068 alleged election-fraud cases since 2000 shows that while fraud has occurred, the rate is infinitesimal.”

Compare that to the benefit of states finding increased interest among younger voters in states that have enacted such voter registration measures and it hardly seems to be outweighed by the negatives.

Here’s the real concern: Those same states that have seen renewed interest in elections have largely favored Democrats because easier registration has made it easier for poor and minority voters to feel they have a stake in the process.

No one in authority wants to come straight out and say it, though.

So the parade continues of offering any plausible reason to justify attempts to stymie such proposals.

Even the tried-and-true responses have started wearing thin, though.

It’s hard to determine whether we, as voters, are just getting more knowledgeable about the political process and can see right through the flimsy arguments better or whether the political powers have become so comfortable wielding power that they just aren’t bothering to try to pull the wool over our eyes anymore.